Lions running back Reggie Bush looks for running room during the loss to the Cardinals Sunday in Glendale, Ariz. / Getty Images

By Anthony Kuehn

Detroit Free Press Special Writer

Anthony Kuehn is the editor of the Detroit Lions blog Lions Gab . His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. Get in touch with Anthony at lionsgab@gmail.com or on Twitter @lionsgab.

I will be the first to admit when the game ended on Sunday, my initial reaction was ďsame old Lions.Ē Since then, Iíve read countless articles, seen plenty of comments and gotten a fair amount of feedback from fans saying the same thing.

Now, Iím not going to tell you that things will be different. Iím not going to tell you that this will be the last time the Lions shoot themselves in the foot. I am going to tell you to be patient.

The Detroit Lions did far more foot-shooting in their first game, yet unlike last season, found a way to win. The Lions looked horrendous in Cleveland in the preseason and rebounded by stomping the Patriots the following week. So far this season, there is more evidence that the Lions are capable of rebounding from a bad performance that not.

Iím not saying they will. If there is one thing Iíve learned about the Lions is you canít rush to judgment.

The Lions started the 2003 season with a big win over the Cardinals and Joey Harrington and Charles Rogers connected on two touchdowns. The Lions looked like a legitimate playoff contender after that game. They were not.

The Lions started the 2007 season 6-2, a sure lock for the postseason ... until they went 1-7 the rest of the way. Notice a pattern?

Football is a strange game to analyze because there are so many variables that can affect one game. There are more players on the field than any of the other major sports, all the players are interacting the entire time and coaching has a farm greater impact than any of the other sports. The biggest difference however, is the number of games.

Itís very hard to make determinations about patterns and trends with small sample sizes. If I go to a gym and shoot five free throws, making all five, can you deduce that I am a great free throw shooter? Not accurately. I could continue shooting 95 more and only make 30 of them, giving me a sample size of 100 shots and leaving me at 35%. Which was a more accurate indicator of my free throw shooting? A five shot sample or 100?

The NFL only plays 16 games with a high amount of variables. Baseball gives you 162, basketball and hockey 82. The fact that they play multiple games per week helps avoid the paralysis by analysis each NFL game is subject to.

There is an incredible amount of preparation, game planning and coaching that goes into each game and losing a focal point of that planning is one of the most disruptive things that can happen to an NFL team. Losing Reggie Bush basically threw all that preparation and planning out the window and left the Lions scrambling to adjust. That is a particular weakness of Scott Linehanís, in my opinion óadjusting to changing circumstances.

Three years ago, the Lions were playing the Packers at Ford Field and Aaron Rodgers went down with a concussion. The Packers couldnít even muster a touchdown without him and lost the game to the Lions. The same Lions team that would finish the season 6-10, while those very same Packers would get a healthy Aaron Rodgers back and win the Super Bowl.

The Lions are 1-1 after two games. They have made mistakes in both games, overcoming them in one and falling victim to them in the other. That is not enough to judge this team on. Some of these mistakes follow a similar pattern and we have a pretty big sample size on those. Brandon Pettigrew dropping passes, personal fouls and untimely pass interference calls have long plagued this team and will likely continue.

However, the Lions also hit on a few big plays to Calvin Johnson, scored their second defensive touchdown (even though only one counted) and saw the linebackers recording turnovers on consecutive weeks. All changes from last season and signs of promise.

I said a few weeks ago when I made my season prediction, the Lions have a brutal schedule to start the season. Four out of six games on the road including a cross country road trip and a visit to Wisconsin were the Lions havenít won in 22 tries and a trip to Washington where they have never won. This team is very likely to get off to a bad start.

If they can get to 3-3 or 2-4 in these first games, that isnít a death knell. The thing about those Super Bowl-winning Packers of 2010 wasnít how well they played in September and October. They snuck into the playoffs as a sixth seed and got hot at the right time. The next year, they went 15-1 and bowed out of the playoffs in their first game. The Lions just need to be in striking range of a playoff spot at the halfway point, and then we can begin to panic if things fall apart. For now, letís just move onto the Washington game and see what develops. Itís too early to lose hope, if recent history holds up, we have all of November and December for that.